


Old Salt Sea

by Tassos



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Post Season 6, Season 6 Spoilers, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-23
Updated: 2011-07-23
Packaged: 2017-10-21 16:12:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/227110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassos/pseuds/Tassos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A summer mystery. Xander is sick of mysteries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Salt Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Written for O. at the Support Stacie Auction  
> Spoilers: Buffy season 6 and Angel season 3, set during the summer afterward  
> This story was started in 2009 and finished in 2010 and is now being posted in 2011. It was an auction fic which was one reason I don’t offer words very often. Thanks to girl_wonder for cheerleading.

_Once upon a time in a village by the sea,  
A young boy and girl danced through the sand  
Best friends inseparable were they._

There's two puddles on the concrete. Large, about an inch deep and utterly unremarkable considering they're on the causeway by the docks. Except it's not water, not all of it. Not blood either; spreading thick and purple rather than red in twists and trails that curl like smoke.

It's raining. Large, thick drops from shapeless gray skies that slide down the back of Xander's coat, cold on his skin. He feels like a noir detective, Dick Tracy, except half as cool and twice as tired.

Dick Tracy never had to deal with crap this weird.

The urge to walk away overwhelms him. He could just step through the puddle, scatter the purple ichor and let the rain take care of the rest and go on to the main office and talk to the Dockmaster about the work on the shipping warehouse.

Once upon a time in a village by the sea there was a little boy who wasn't afraid of the dark.

Xander steps through the puddles and scatters the purple ichor. He lets the rain take care of the rest.

* * *

He stares at the ceiling. The blanket is too heavy, too warm, but Xander doesn't push it away. He'll be cold in the small hours of the morning. He stares at the ceiling with his eyes open because when he closes them, the red spots slide into a red outline and then he has to open his eyes again.

First the meeting, then getting home and cleaned up. Eating dinner. Xander didn't once think about the purple goo. Not once, not at all.

Once upon a time in a village by the sea there was a little boy who wasn't afraid of the dark. He became the carpenter's apprentice and learned to make strong homes and beautiful furniture.

The ceiling is dark and gloomy and blank. Xander doesn't need to think about it to see dark red blood swirling in the puddles on the dock.

He gets up finally, frustrated and exhausted and angry because his mind won't quit.

"It's not fucking fair." On the couch he drops his head into his hands. Everyone's gone - Buffy and Dawn on vacation north and Xander hates them a lot for that right now in the middle of the night.

Outside the rain has stopped. Xander doesn't know what time it is, but he grabs a pair of jeans, shoes, and leaves his coat. He grabs an axe by the door.

* * *

When he arrives at the harbor, Xander wonders what the hell he was thinking. It's two am and whatever trail was in the puddles is long gone. It's too dark to see anything beyond the inky black of the ocean, loud and shushing against the concrete pylons. The moon shimmers against the waves, just past new and fragile like it's going to disappear at any second.

Staring out, Xander can't help but feel small and inconsequential and ten kinds of idiot. It's two in the morning and he has an axe and no idea what he's even looking for.

Buffy should be out here, and he'd come in tomorrow and she'd tell Giles and make bad jokes and Willow would . . . Xander doesn't know what the hell he's doing out here.

He turns around and walks back the way he came, but when he gets to the gangway he stops and keeps going instead of heading up to the parking lot. The sand's not much farther, littered here with industrial detritus but Xander keeps walking.

The wind picks up and when Xander finally stops. He wishes he had his jacket. The breeze feels good though, like something right, something that will be as same tomorrow as it was yesterday. He drops his axe, knees folding after it, and lies back in the sand that's cool to the touch and hard, but Xander stretches out, memories of coming here with WIllow and Jesse when they were in middle school and Jesse's parents would bring them out here in the summer time. Never at night, though, but when it was bright and sunny

* * *

Something nudges him. Jabs his side and Xander groans, the prickle of chill that had him dreaming of walk-in freezers bleeding into the morning chill.

His brain startles a second later and he scrambles to his feet, fingers searching for his axe.

"You know, you're lucky it was me who came along and not some cop. I don't think even Sunnydale police would ignore the giant blade you nearly impaled yourself on."

Standing a foot away is Cordelia Chase. Xander blinks twice, too asleep to process the fact that Cordelia Chase, expensive sandals held delicately in one had, had just toed him awake. She's wearing a swishy skirt, a shirt that probably shouldn't be cut that low and a jacket that falls to her knees.

"What are you doing here?"

"No hello? Great to see you. Gee, Cordelia, how's you're life? Because it's great. Just great right now."

"Hello?" Xander rolls to his feet and brushes the sand off the seat of his pants. The ocean is calm and gray with the sun not quite up. Xander shivers and wishes he'd been bright enough to bring his jacket.

Cordelia raises an eyebrow. It's so high school and Xander says "Breakfast?" without even thinking about it, part of him trying to figure out what he did wrong and the rest of him knowing that the only reason Cordelia found him was because she's looking for the same thing he is.

"You're buying."

* * *

"Celebrities stirring up a stink because their precious beachfront property is getting all messed up by purple grossness. Never mind when it's just the state park down the street." Cordelia stabs the eggs on her plate, taking quick, short bites. She's focused on her food and doesn't look up. Up close, Xander can see the smears of makeup across her cheeks, thick and heavy.

He sips his coffee and nudges his pancakes with his fork. He's not very hungry after all. Mostly he wishes Cordelia would look at him. He's not a wall she can just bounce ideas off of. He's here, and she's the one that found him.

"Do you know what it is?" He interrupts impatiently. Her fork stops midair and her head comes up, but she's not smiling. Still.

"Haven't you been listening?" she says all scorn. "That's why I came here. Because Angel and Wesley have fucked off somewhere without bothering to tell me? God, I forgot what an idiot you could be."

"Hey!"

"I came to rally the troops. Rah rah rah." She waves her fork with a smile as fake as the smooth skin her makeup presents. "What were you doing sleeping on the beach anyway? Is drunk your new hobby?" She returns to her eggs.

It stings. It was meant to. Like she knows everything and doesn't care because one Xander Harris is beneath her. Xander swallows the knot in his throat and Anya pops into his head, crying and upset which hurts even more.

"I'm the," he swallows again, "I'm the troops." That grabs her attention back. Xander pokes his pancakes again. "Buffy and Dawn are doing the sister road trip thing to Santa Cruz." He stops, shrugs, doesn't know what she's heard.

"Oh." She doesn't say anything else, so he figures she knows enough. Xander kind of wishes she would ask anyway so he could tell her how much it sucks. Maybe throw his stupid fork across the table. Maybe throw the table except it's probably bolted down and he's no slayer.

He's not. This isn't his calling and he has to go to work in a few hours.

* * *

Xander has a key to the Magic Box. He calls in sick without being asked and leads Cordelia inside. Inside is dim with the shades drawn, cool while outside the sun is too much. Xander heads for the books while Cordelia meanders through the front, poking at the merchandise and debris both.

There are too many titles and just looking at them makes Xander's head ache. "Any ideas where to start?" he asks because all they have to go on is purple goo and dead bodies. He pulls down _Beneath the Surface, a Compendium of Hydrophilic Dangers_.

"That's why I came to you guys for help," Cordelia says, ambling over. She leaves several feet between them and looks over the shelves of Giles's collection that stayed. The books are the only things that have been put back properly. "Is this where - "

"Giles managed to hold her here for a little while."

"Angel said - "

"Can we not?"

He ignores her glare that he feels like an itch.

"Fine." All hint of concern is gone from her voice, the perfect bitch tone that says she didn't care anyway. Xander ignores the hurt underneath.

Once upon a time in a village by the sea, the carpenter's apprentice was very good at breaking hearts and stomping on them.

Xander grabs two more books and the binder with the cross-referenced source list that Willow made ages and ages ago when her magic was all about computers. He doesn't hesitate opening it but he does pause at the hand written corrections that scatter through the margins. Doesn't think about them and starts pulling books.

* * *

"This is pointless." Cordelia slams her book closed. They've spent the last hour in silence, reading, and the table is covered in discarded references.

Xander has a headache. He's hungry too and thinks tacos for lunch sounds way better than this kind of self flagellation.

"You want to go grab lunch and a newspaper?" His back creaks when he stretches.

"I want someone who knows what they're doing to be here to do it." Cordelia crosses her arms and glares at the books as if they are at fault for not giving up their secrets. Fuck 'em.

Xander grabs his jacket. "You coming?" But Cordelia is already on her feet.

The obituaries and headlines are a bust, but the tacos are great. Xander eats four and watches Cordelia pick at her tostada.

He debates through his fifth taco, then asks, "You okay?"

"What? Yeah. Fine." She fakes a smile that lies as heavily as her makeup.

Xander nods and shoves his mouth full of beans and beef, because he doesn't know how to push anymore. Cordelia's poised. Back straight but tense and when she glances up she only rolls her eyes at him stuffing his face. She found tact somewhere down in LA, and it's throwing Xander off because now he can't blurt out stuff and call her on it.

He doesn't know her anymore.

It's uncomfortable but not unfamiliar. He hasn't known anyone this year. Least of all himself. Buffy and Willow, he still wonders what he could have done better.

"So," he says brightly instead. It's too sunny for the thoughts that keep him up at night. "What was the grossest demon you came across?"

"What?" Cordelia frowns, then huffs, remembering. It's an old game that broke up long hours scouring books after school.

"Worst demon," Xander repeats, grinning a little now.

"This creepy little thing that flops onto land to lay its eggs. Eyes on the top of its head. White and spotty, gnarly teeth. It lays in wait under the sand for unsuspecting tanners to walk over it before it chomps off their feet."

"Think it could be our demon?"

"Would I waste time still looking if it were? They spawn in early spring."

"Right." Stupid. Of course, she would have said.

"What about you?"

Xander shrugs. Nothing had really jumped out as gross. "The giant squid monsters, I guess. It was kind of hard to tell though since there were about ten descriptions and no pictures."

"It's not a giant squid."

"No." Other evidence would be on the docks.

Cordelia sighs. "This is going to get gross, isn't it."

Again, Xander shrugs. He has no idea. He's not thinking that far ahead, honestly, but Cordelia's probably right now that he does. The docks are their next stop.

* * *

"At least he's not all torn up and ravaged," says Cordelia when they find the body.

It's a man, Giles's age, maybe older, wearing a nice shirt and tie that don't explain why he's folded in half backward over the guard rail near one of the loading docks.

Cordelia doesn't look anything but tired as she bends over with an ease that belies the awkwardness of her skirt to rifle through his pockets.

Once upon a time, death was a shock. Terrifying up close and within touching distance. Xander barely remembers, but then he finds the man's eyes and it's Warren without his skin and he has to get away just to breathe.

He stumbles, trips over his own two feet and then Cordelia's hand is on his elbow.

"I'm all right," says Xander. Cordelia's fingers dig into his arm, don't release. He takes in big sobbing gasps as she turns him toward the ocean, forces him onto a concrete pylon.

Xander waits for the catty remark. A Cordelia Chase special. Crybaby Xander or Didn't you ever learn how to walk or I can't believe you fainted, no wait I can.

But Cordelia just holds onto his elbow until he can breathe again, her body between him and the corpse.

"It's not because of him," Xander says anyway, a minute after when the silence gets too heavy. He can't look up at her so he looks out at the water. It's ugly here at the docks, marred by concrete and I-beams. Beyond the breakwater there's something that did this.

Her hand pats his back as she moves away. Xander hears cloth moving and when he turns, she's covered the man's face and is now inspecting him for cause of death with a delicate touch.

Xander takes another deep breath, another look out at the ocean, then stands and goes over. "Anything?"

As he speaks, Cordelia pries the man's mouth open where it's clenched tight around a bulb if seaweed. Water gushes out after.

Cordelia doesn't need to say anything when she raises an eyebrow at him. It's obvious; the man drowned.

* * *

They find a picture in his pocket folded and folded again, a group shot of six men and six women in front of a two story stucco building. There's a golf course off in the background and the ocean beyond. It's old.

"Early nineties," says Cordelia as they peer at it. The men are grinning widely, most with an arm curled around the women beside them. Their wives are tightlipped as they smile, straight-backed, like they're suffering through the taking of the photo. Their dead man is on the far right. His wife isn't smiling at all.

Cordelia taps the face of the man second from the left. "He was the first one. Then him." Her fingers slide over one.

"I guess we need to look up the others," says Xander. "And their wives."

It's easier than expected. The stucco building belongs to a country club and the photo does the rest of the work.

"Sure, they used to be members," says Dwight the manager after he gives each face a name. "They were friends from law school and after they got jobs and went their separate ways they used to have reunion weekends here. All got married around the same time too."

"Anyone want them dead?" asks Xander.

Dwight shrugs. "They were frat boys and then they were lawyers. Okay people, mostly, but you know, dickish sometimes. Most of the people who come here are a little like that." He scratches his chin and glances at Cordelia. "I kind of got the impression that their wives didn't like them much. They used to sit and wait in the lounge, not really talking, but still clearly visiting together like they were at a funeral or something. Never smiled."

Afterwards, Xander trails Cordelia outside. The grounds are pretty. They're just north of Sunnydale with the coastal hills lurching upward near the highway and the golf course sloping toward the sea, abruptly ending at a stiff drop to the beach below. A nearby sign says to keep clear when the seals beach here.

"I haven't heard anything about the wives since the murders, have you?" Cordelia asks. The wind tugs at her hair, real wind that's laced with salt.

"No," Xander says. "Think they called up a monster to eat their husbands?"

Cordelia looks out over the water where the sun's starting to set and carefully doesn't look at him. "If they weren't happy."

Though she doesn't finish the thought, Xander still hears it. He grew up in a family where there was a reason for unhappiness.

Once upon a time, in a village by the sea, there was a little boy who wasn't afraid of the dark because he knew it wasn't the dark itself that was scary.

"We better see if they're still around," he says. They turn their backs to the ocean and go back to the car.

* * *

They get lunch at a taco truck as they pass back into town. It's near the construction site and Xander feels guilty about calling in sick. The thought of doing it again tomorrow makes him feel old and tired, as if he had a real reason not to go in. He thinks of Mack and his cancer and Kyle with his bum shoulder. Xander's going to be fifty and still be calling in to fight off monsters. Either that or he'll be dead, killed by one, like Tara.

He takes a large bite from his burrito, nearly choking himself to stop thinking about it.

"You okay?" Cordelia asks, concerned.

"Hot," Xander says around the food in his mouth.

By the time they get back to the Magic Box, it's dark. Xander lets them in, only turning on the lights in the back. The table is still covered in books from earlier but neither he nor Cordelia move to open them, instead falling into their chairs wearily. Their best lead now is the wives. They can't do much more till morning.

Cordelia rubs her temples.

"Do you have a place to stay?" asks Xander. She shrugs.

After a minute Xander starts putting the books away, haphazardly shelving them and hoping they're more or less in the right place.

He takes Cordelia to his apartment, tossing his spare set of sheets and blanket on the couch. It's early still but she looks exhausted. She's been quiet since the Country Club and suddenly Xander can't stand it. She's not the Cordelia from high school, as if someone stole her voice and drained her of the fire he remembers so well.

"You okay?" he asks when she stands by the couch, picking at the blanket.

"Tired," she musters a smile.

"Yeah." Xander sighs. He doesn't have anything else to say so he turns on the television. They watch a _Seinfeld_ rerun and then _Friends_ but Xander's head won't quit thinking about how far away from his reality they are. He imagines Rachel stepping out of her apartment and stumbling across a purple puddle and screaming.

At one point Cordelia gets up and goes into Xander's bedroom. She comes back in one of his t-shirts and an old pair of sweatpants. Pulling the blanket loose, she curls up on the couch a little closer to Xander, enough that after another minute of Joey making a fool out of himself, she rests her head on his shoulder.

"I used to think that I would love being an actress," she says.

"What, and give up all the late nights and bloody bodies?" Xander jokes, but it falls flat to his own ears.

"Yeah," Cordelia says, and he's not sure if it's agreement or not. "I made my choice," she says a little later, a little stronger. "But sometimes -"

Sometimes.

Xander doesn't need to hear the rest of that thought either.

* * *

Xander calls in sick again the next morning while Cordelia gets them bagels for breakfast. She's back in her skirt and coat but the makeup is cleaned from her face and she left her hair spilling around her shoulders. She smiles when she drops the newspaper on the table in the Magic Box, whatever was bugging her last night gone for the moment.

"I got you coffee, but I didn't know what you wanted in it so there's stuff in here." She shakes the brown paper bag she puts beside the food.

"Thanks." Xander has the obituary clippings he was now able to find laid out on the table. Only one mentions a wife, the oldest one, Laurence and Grace Moore found brutally murdered in San Diego. The news article in the same paper talks about a psychopath who skinned the wife. The case is cold.

"We've got one dead wife," he taps the article. Cordelia comes around to read it.

"Skinned," she says when she's done.

"Yeah," Xander agrees.

"She's either the monster or the first victim. Any of the other wives come up?"

"No. None of them."

"But if it's her, why wait?" asks Cordelia. "They were married for years. If she could have done this and she was unhappy like that guys said, why now?"

Xander shrugged and refrained from making a crack about why women do anything. "We need to figure out what she is."

"We tried that yesterday."

"We know more today. She was married. If she's alive, she left her human skin. She kills men."

"She kills men who knew each other. Men whose wives she was friends with."

"She waited a lot of years before striking."

Cordelia looks back down at the article, the photo of the Moores is posed. Laurence smiles but Grace seems to be suffering through the process. "Maybe she couldn't before now," she says. "When a human summons a demon there's a ritual, a process that keeps the summoner safe. Maybe it took her this long to break through that."

"She was trapped." Normally Xander wouldn't have a problem with a trapped demon. It made them easier to kill. But the photo staring back wasn't of a demon. It was a woman, unhappy and stuck where she didn't belong. Something inside him clenches.

"We need," he clears his throat. "We need to find the other women."

Cordelia nods, head bent over the obituaries. "There's two men we haven't confirmed dead," she says.

"Missing persons report for Neil Boroback," Xander taps the name on the list Dwight gave them.

"So there's only one left: Patrick Wallace."

He still lives in Sunnydale; it doesn't take long to find his address.

* * *

The house is in a wealthy neighborhood near the coast where the beach gives way to stoop cliffs. No one answers when they ring the doorbell, but they can hear the voices inside suddenly stop. Xander and Cordelia look at each other, then Xander bangs on the door again while Cordelia slips around the back.

"Hey, you in there!" yells Xander. "We're looking for Patrick Wallace!" More movement goes on inside - a chair crashes to the floor - but they're running away from him. Xander tries the doorknob but it's locked though no deadbolt. He's no slayer, but he knows where brute force will do the most damage.

"Hey! Stop!" Cordelia shouts, on the other side of the wall. "I said stop!"

Xander takes a step back and kicks out again and again, then overbalances when it opens suddenly from the inside. Cordelia is already running up the stairs. "Two!" she shouts over her shoulder. "Furry monster and the wife!"

The wife. That Xander would bet that Patrick Wallace was already dead. And how did Cordelia run so fast in that skirt and those heels?

Another closed door is at the top of the stairs.

"Go away!" a wretched woman's voice cracks through the wood.

"Where's Patrick?" Xander shouts.

"Why always Patrick?" the same woman yells. "He's gone. For good. It's over so you should just go away."

"People are dead. More could die."

"No, it's over. We're free now. Let us go!"

Cordelia glances at him. "Free? Free from what?" she calls through the door.

The woman is crying now, wrenching, awful sobs that scrape across her throat. There's no sound of the other person.

"We won't hurt you," Cordelia tries. "Please, we just want to understand." But she gets no response except the tears that slowly fade into hiccups. Wood against wood moves inside - a window, Xander thinks and turns to backtrack down the stairs.

The wife's voice stops him, low and gravely. "They stole us. They kept us. Grace is taking us home. Let us go."

"What do you mean? What -" Cordelia looks at Xander. "Grace Moore was skinned," she whispers. "Mrs. Wallace?" she says louder, urgently. "Is Grace the person with you?"

The only answer is the crash of wood splintering and the window pane rattling. Xander and Cordelia don't look at each other before they stumble back down the stairs and through the kitchen to the back yard. Even though it's a second story drop, Xander's not surprised when they see two people slamming through the back gate.

He and Cordelia run after them into the neighborhood. The asphalt is unlined and beyond then next row of houses, he hears the ocean crashing against the sea cliff. The two women are running towards it, and Xander can't help but thank whatever's up there for dumb villains. They round another house then run down the driveway of a third, through the open backyard, right up to the edge of the cliff.

Cordelia is breathing as hard as Xander when they reach the driveway, slowing to walk the rest. As they draw closer, they see Grace for the first time - not a woman any longer, but a specter of red flesh and bulging eyes out of a misshapen skull that steps between them and Mrs. Wallace. A skinned woman still walking.

"No closer," she barks at them. Behind her, Mrs. Wallace is pulling something on.

Xander doesn't have more than a stake on him so he's not sure what he's going to do. He's not sure what's happening. He takes another step closer.

"No!" snaps Grace, raising her hands like she'll fight them off if they try to stop them.

"There's no where for you to go," says Xander.

"Pria is going home. And then I will die. You won't stop her."

"Xander look," Cordelia's hand grabs his wrist. Behind Grace, Mrs. Wallace - Pria - has finished dressing and flops to the ground, a seal. She's a seal, and Xander can't stop staring. She flops around getting closer and closer to the edge of the cliff - not too high here, Xander realizes, low enough, deep enough water below for her to survive the fall. The jump.

They watch, even Gace watches, as Pria goes over the edge without a backwards glance disappearing with splash muffled by the overpowering thunder of the waves.

"Now she is home," says Grace, turning back to them.

"What about you?" asks Cordelia.

"I made the sacrifice for them. They are free now, and I must pay the sea's price."

Xander's not sure he's following, frozen still by the fact that a women turned into a seal before his eyes. But the pieces are there, waiting for him to see.

Grace steps over the edge of the cliff.

"No!" Cordelia runs forward, Xander following. Grace's body floats to the surface of the water, lifeless, until the waves pull her under.

* * *

Once upon a time in a village by the sea, a young boy found a victim who was monster and a monster who was a victim.

"Do you remember when this made sense?" They're back in Sunnydale, eating tacos across the street from the Magic Box. Xander's been staring at the words on the awning for ten minutes, thinking how funny the shape of an "M" is.

"What?" Cordelia has a tostada balanced on her knees.

"Fighting monsters." Xander thinks it made sense back in high school. It must have. Black hats, white hats, when teachers were evil and spells were malicious.

"It's never made sense," says Cordelia. "It's about the stupidest thing anyone could do."

Xander can't argue with that. Throwing himself into danger is definitely not up there for anyone with brains. And yet.

"If you could walk away, would you?"

Cordelia looks up at the Magic Box. "You mean if I wasn't half demon and a Seer and my best friend who's a vampire hadn't just disappeared?"

"Yeah, that."

"I'm not that person anymore." She finally turns toward him. "You're not either."

Xander tries to smile, sort of succeeds. "I still like Twinkies."

"And you still wear plaid."

"Hey! This plaid is very manly and the official outfit of working men everywhere."

Cordelia rolls her eyes, but the heavy funk Xander had been staring off in is broken. He looks back at the Magic Box sign and sees a building waiting for him to clean up the mess he made inside. Giles won't like the books being out of order. It's a comforting thought.

"So hey, you want to go to the Bronze tonight? Old times sake?" he asks.

Cordelia gives him that look he remembers, the you-are being-weird-and-should-stop-right-now look.

"Just friends. Who kill demons together."

"We didn't kill anyone this time."

"Well, we can pretend it was uncomplicated. Go celebrate the sticky situation unsticking itself." Xander just wants to remember what uncomplicated feels like, even if he knows its all an illusion.

He has work tomorrow, and when he gets home he'll grab a paper and check out the obits. Watch a movie with lots of explosions. Maybe call Buffy and see what's up in Santa Cruz.

"Okay," says Cordelia. "But I refuse to dance with you. And I get to pick out your outfit."

Xander smiles. "Deal."


End file.
